* The name of this city, at first read as Amtikhadashti, and identified with Ammokhostos or with Amathous,—­Amti- Khadash would in this case be equivalent to New Amathous,—­is really Karti-Khadashti, as is proved by the variant reading discovered by Schrader, and this is identical with the native name of Carthage in Africa.  This new city must have been of some antiquity by the time of Elulai, for it is mentioned on a fragment of a bronze vase found in Cyprus itself:  this fragment belonged to a King Hiram, who according to some authorities would be Hiram ii., according to others, Hiram I.

Mutton’s successor, Elulai, continued, as we know, the work of defence and conquest:  perhaps it was with a view to checking his advance that seven kings of Cyprus sent an embassy, in 709 B.C., to his suzerain, Sargon, and placed themselves under the protection of Assyria.  If this was actually the case, and Elulai was compelled to suspend hostilities against these hereditary foes, one can understand that this grievance, added to the reasons for uneasiness inspired by the situation of his continental dominions, may have given him the desire to rid himself of the yoke of Assyria, and contributed to his resolution to ally himself with the powers which were taking up arms against her.  The constant intercourse of his subjects with the Delta, and his natural anxiety to avoid anything which might close one of the richest markets of the world to the Tyrian trade, inclined him to receive favourably the overtures of the Pharaoh:  the emissaries of Shabitoku found him as much disposed as Hezekiah himself to begin the struggle.  The latter monarch, who had ascended the throne while still very young, had at first shown no ambition beyond the carrying out of religious reforms.  His father Ahaz had been far from orthodox, in spite of the influence exerted over him by Isaiah.  During his visit to Tiglath-pileser at Damascus (729 B.C.) he had noticed an altar whose design pleased him.  He sent a description of it to the high priest Urijah, with orders to have a similar one constructed, and erected in the court of the temple at Jerusalem:  this altar he appropriated to his personal use, and caused the priests to minister at it, instead of at the old altar, which he relegated to an inferior position.  He also effected changes in the temple furniture, which doubtless appeared to him old-fashioned in comparison with the splendours of the Assyrian worship which he had witnessed, and he made some alterations in the approaches to the temple, wishing, as far as we can judge, that the King of Judah should henceforth, like his brother of Nineveh, have a private, means of access to his national god.